About

This is a blog about a big ginger dog called Theo. We first met Theo in late 2009, when we adopted him from a rescue centre. We were told that he was about a year old, maybe more (we now think he was about 6 months). This is me and Theo in the snow a few months after we’d taken him on, around the time that we still trying to ‘fatten’ him up as he was about 26kg at that time and under weight.

We were also told that he was a labrador husky cross. This is the official version, and I’m sticking with it, although we (my partner Kim and I) have made several lines of enquiry as he also looks a little like a lot of other breeds.

He’s changed our lives for the better, and to borrow the phrase ‘is the happy heart beat of our home‘. This blog is an attempt to share some of the fun, and maybe some of the tips and tricks that come with responsible dog ownership along the way. We’re not involved in any profession related to dogs, just a family that loves dogs.

So this is the plan, we’ll update the blog with all the misadventures and mischief, and also write articles on dog-related topics to provide help, guidance or simply just further reading. Many things we’ve learned about dog behaviour, training and communication can be resolved with simple common sense solutions, so long as you treat the dog and the situation on its own merits.

I’ll leave you with the best advice that we were ever given:

“Think to yourself that your dog is the best dog in the world”. Caroline Dunn, mindyourdog

If you say it out loud, start believing it and telling it to your own dog, your relationship with your dog will start to improve. But.. you have to mean it!

You can connect with Theodog.co.uk in a number of ways, so you don’t miss a single update! Here’s an outline of the different ways you can follow:

Email remains the favourite method for most people. You can sign up with feedburner by clicking this link. Alternatively you can sign up using the subscribe option at the top of most pages. Then you will need to visit your inbox to click the activation link in the confirmation email you’ll receive from Feedburner.

Twitter: For those of you who enjoy life on the run, Twitter offers a quick 140 character preview of our posts, including a clickable link to the post, if you choose to visit. The advantage here is you keep up with what’s new, while only viewing that which you choose to click on. Some love it; others not so much. We like to make it available for those who do.

RSS: If you use a feed reader, then you will already be familiar with this choice. It’s a little like building your own magazine of all the specific articles from all your favourite sites automatically updating into your preferred RSS reader. I love this approach for doing research. You can subscribe to our RSS link at the top of every page.

I get lots of letters from my readers. I’ll attempt to answer all of them. If you have a question that you need help with, I’ll either answer it or pass it along to our trainers or our vet, depending on the topic. You can remain anonymous, if you choose, or send along a picture of your Rover and we’ll include him on the blog as a ‘cover dog’ one day. Either way, we enjoy your participation. You can reach me at: mike [at] theodog.co.uk